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Over 30-something years as a part of music, digital sampling has become more restricted by the industry even as technology to manipulate and recombine samples has introduced infinite creative possibilities.

Over 30-something years as a part of music, digital sampling has become more restricted by the industry even as technology to manipulate and recombine samples has introduced infinite creative possibilities.

That’s the tension at the heart of Amerigo Gazaway’s work. Under the Soul Mates Project label, the producer’s “conceptual collaborations” meticulously combine samples to imagine team-ups that never were, like Fela Kuti with De La Soul (“Fela Soul,” 2011), A Tribe Called Quest with Pharcyde (“Bizarre Tribe,” 2012) and Marvin Gaye with Mos Def (the two-part “Yasiin Gaye,” 2014). These free downloads became Internet sensations and brought adulation from the music press. There was a problem, though: Although he wasn’t charging for the music, he hadn’t cleared the samples, and record companies came calling with cease-and-desist orders.

“It’s tricky: The ‘Yasiin Gaye’ got shut down in 2 days,” says Gazaway, 30, who will play a couple of DJ sets during Wednesday night’s preview party for “Hassan Hajjaj: My Rock Stars” at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.

“It inspired me to come back with Volume 2 ... and one of those tracks ended up being picked up for an Apple ad ('Undeniable' from the 'What Will Your Verse Be?' campaign). It’s a more simplified version of the track, easier to clear, but we were able to work that out and get that track on iTunes, and that’s helped us a little bit in terms of people not immediately shutting us down.”

Gazaway’s experiences have led him to become an advocate for copyright law reform and for technologies that ease the process of clearing samples.

'There's gonna be evolution,' he says. '(The industry) will allow it as long as they can monitor it and keep it under their ecosystem.'

While he works on a couple of new Soul Mates mashups, Gazaway — who is from Nashville and now lives in New York — is putting together a traditional DJ mix called 'Coolout Corner,' a tribute to the 1989 Spike Lee film 'Do the Right Thing.'

'It's starting to get warm here, and I was trying to come up with concept that was cooler than just 'Summer Mix 2016.' I started watching 'Do the Right Thing,' and it's such a great depiction of a hot summer day in New York.'

Gazaway's latest Soul Mates release, from late 2015, holds special appeal for Memphis folks. It's called 'The Trill Is Gone,' and it finds 'Beale Street Blues Boy' B.B. King trading licks with UGK, the Texas rap duo who were real-life contemporaries and collaborators with Memphis rap icons such as Three 6 Mafia, (the artist formerly known as 'Ska-Face') Al Kapone and 8Ball & MJG. Download it and (most of) Amerigo Gazaway's other releases at his Bandcamp site.

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